The Parish Church Photographic Survey
A systematic record of England's rural ecclesiastical heritage
Thirty years in the English countryside
Since the mid-1990s I have been engaged in a systematic photographic survey of the rural parish churches of England — not as a casual pursuit but as a disciplined, county-by-county documentation of buildings that collectively represent one of the most significant concentrations of historic architecture and funerary art in the world.
The survey covers the exterior and interior of each church in detail: the fabric of the building, its furnishings, monuments, and stained glass. Each visit is recorded methodically, and the resulting archive now stands at over 600,000 images across approximately 10,000 churches.
These buildings are not museums. They are living structures, subject to alteration, decay, and loss. The purpose of the survey is documentation before that loss occurs.
Recommended 1200 × 525 px
The project is deliberately comprehensive rather than selective. Celebrated buildings and obscure ones receive the same systematic attention. A small Norman chapel in an overgrown Lincolnshire field and a grand Perpendicular wool church in Suffolk are documented with equal care — it is often the overlooked church that contains the unexpected treasure.
Systematic, not selective
The survey follows a consistent methodology. Most churches have had full interior photographic documentation, concentrating on their pre-1900 fixtures and fittings — material that is frequently undocumented and increasingly at risk from damp, vandalism, and unsympathetic restoration.
Special research interest attaches to funerary monuments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, an area in which I have published and lectured extensively. My book Country Church Monuments (Penguin Random House, 2022) draws on the survey archive to examine church monuments for a general readership.
The archive is made accessible through the Parish Churches app — a cross-platform tool for researchers, local historians, and anyone with a serious interest in England's ecclesiastical heritage. A separate app, Keyholder, is a church tourism guide for England and Wales, drawing on contributions from church explorers and heritage enthusiasts rather than the photographic archive itself.
Explore the survey
The photographic archive is accessible through the Parish Churches app. For those planning visits to English and Welsh churches, the separate Keyholder app offers a crowd-sourced visiting guide.
Parish Churches
The archive app — photographs, monuments, people, and map, drawn from thirty years of systematic survey. Available on Android, iOS, and desktop.
Learn more →Keyholder
A church tourism guide covering England and Wales — access information, photographs, and visitor notes contributed by church explorers and heritage enthusiasts.
Learn more →